Holding the United States Accountable

The tens of billions of dollars US consumers pay annually for illegal drugs not only finance organized crime syndicates and gangs, allowing them to flourish and infiltrate the police and judicial system in Honduras, it allows them to buy weapons and ammunition to murder and terrorize Honduran citizens.

Honduras Weekly
Yesterday's editorial in the Los Angeles Times titled "Holding Honduras Accountable" argues that the Honduran government should be held accountable for the human rights violations in the country. It opens with a reference to the fact that Honduras has the highest homicide rate in the world, and, by doing so, implies that its government is to blame for the the situation, and thus must clean up its act before it can expect any support from the United States. The article applauds the holding back of US economic aid (Millenium Challenge grant funding) and suggests that a partial withholding of US security assistance might coerce the Lobo administration into implementing needed reforms and speeding up murder investigations.

What is missing, though, from the Los Angeles Times piece is even a mention of the US role in helping create the current violence and instability in Honduras in the first place, and consequently the need to hold the US accountable as well. For the sake of offering a little balance to the one-sided critique by the Times, here are five reasons the US should be held accountable.

1. The US makes up 5 percent of the world's population, but consumes a whopping 90 percent of the world's cocaine -- about 60 percent of which is transported from South America through Honduras and eventually across the US-Mexican border. It is precisely this insatiable demand for drugs by US consumers that fuels narcotrafficking in Honduras and all the related organized crime, gang violence, corruption of the police, local consumption and addiction, and destruction of families and communities.

2. The tens of billions of dollars US consumers pay annually for illegal drugs not only finance organized crime syndicates and gangs, allowing them to flourish and infiltrate the police and judicial system in Honduras, it allows them to buy weapons and ammunition to murder and terrorize Honduran citizens. Most of these weapons and ammunition are also provided by the US -- either by private arms dealers or through misguided US government efforts such as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives' (ATF) "Operation Fast and Furious" gun smuggling program.

3. The invasion of Honduras by Mexican drug cartels such as the Sinaloa and the Zetas is a major reason for the huge spike in murders and violence in the country since 2007 -- the second year of the Zelaya administration. The invasion was, at least in part, encouraged by US-supported crackdowns against traffickers in Colombia and Mexico. In its haste to claim victories in the so-called war against drugs in Colombia and Mexico, the US government has merely succeeded in pushing the war into Honduras.

4. A large number of those responsible for the murders and violence in Honduras were either trained by the US military or in US cities. Most of the leaders of the Zetas, for example, are former members of an elite Mexican army battalion trained at the School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Georgia. Meanwhile, Honduras' two most dangerous street gangs -- the MS-13 and MS-18 (whose members are now believed to be working with or for the Mexican cartels -- originated in Los Angeles, California, where they learned their organizational and recruiting skills.

5. US trade policies have encouraged (... "pressured" is probably more accurate) Honduran governments to drop tariffs on imported agricultural commodities for the sake of "free trade"... which is ironic, given that many of those commodities are heavily subsidized by the US government. The result has been to flood Honduras with cheap foreign agricultural products, against which the average Honduran farmer cannot compete, thus depriving many of these farmers and their families a way to earn a living... which, in turn, has fueled mass emigration to Honduran cities (causing overcrowding and straining local government services) and the US, the disintegration of the family unit, and overall social poverty and instability. A perfect scenario for intimidation, indoctrination, and infiltration by organized crime and gangs.

As always, there are two sides to every story. Good journalism at least strives to tell both. (1/3/12) (photo courtesy Internet)